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A subversive approach to a subversive parable [From Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43] On the surface, the story reads quite clearly—maybe a little too clearly. If you’re a regular church attendee…
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But what does a Christian look like?
By Morf Morford
But now Christians can be identified, not by clothes or accoutrements, but by . . . I’m not sure what.
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Redeeming America After Trump
New Testament Christianity produces an excess of grace and gratitude and empathy, but religious nationalists do not demand radical change of the American way.
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White Church Leaders’ Praise + Protest Pledge
By RLC Editor
We come together to express our commitment towards fighting racial injustice in our own spheres of influence and America at large.
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Waking Up
I turn my face with hand upraised overwhelmed by the rays of truth That illuminate injustice
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A Prayer Request for Tony and Update From the Campolo Family
By RLC Editor
Red Letter Community, please read the letter shared by Tony’s family below: Dear Friends, On the evening of June 20 our father, Tony Campolo, had a stroke that partially paralyzed…
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The Coalition For Praise and Protest Statement
By RLC Editor
If ever there was a time for the church to regain its leadership in integrous, prophetic music that can bring about lasting change, it is now.
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On American Exceptionalism
By Jon Huckins
What transpired that Sunday is nothing short of a bold display of American Exceptionalism. Which, to be clear, is idolatry.
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Join Us in Prophecy Against The Pandemics
Sign the pledge to preach the truth on this July 4th weekend of the America yet to be.
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Should White Christians Be Praising God?
By Jon Mathieu
But the worship was only in music and word, and perhaps thought—not in the concrete economic, social, and policy decisions of those in power.
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Virtual Dialogue in a Divided World: 10 Steps to Healthy Social Media Interaction
By Corey Farr
The bottom line is something so painfully obvious that it shouldn’t even need to be said: We – don’t – have – to – agree to just listen.
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The Dangers of Adoptees as Blessings
Anytime we look past loss and grief in order to center ourselves in a story, we’re presenting an overly simplistic, and oppressive, view of religion.
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Should Evangelicals Terminate Their Affair With the State of Israel?
By Alex Awad
When we heed the words of the prophet Micah, we may end our political recklessness.
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All Christians Should Celebrate the SCOTUS Ruling on LGBTQ+ Discrimination
When the focus is shifted to “okay, but how does this affect us?” it misses the whole point of who it truly affects.
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Justified Anger: Film Screening
By Alex Gee
Explore the true history of our nation through Dr. Alex Gee’s journey into his own ancestry.
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Let Lament Lead to These 12 Actions
To our elected representatives, you too, face one question: Will you value people over profits?
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We Need to Grieve. Seven Places to Begin.
Our grief may just have the impact of creating an antibody that will be the moral revival our country needs.
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What’s Next for the Poor People’s Campaign?
How can we remake America so that “We the People” means all of us?
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Is the Rain Not Just?
God‘s justice is intimately tied to God‘s mercy.
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United Methodists Unveil ‘Dismantling Racism’ Initiative
By RLC Editor
A multi-level effort throughout the church to initiate a sustained and coordinated effort to dismantle racism.
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Why It Matters: An Interview with Sara Groves About Noticing and Naming
By Sara Groves
The public naming of things hidden, things embedded, systemic, is prophetic.
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Deconstructing Symbols that Terrorize
We are seeing now that history is not as far in the past as we think it is, and something that is not symbolically significant to me may certainly mean…
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Protest, Prophecy, and Defunding the Police
Progress can be made as long as we continue to listen to the cries of those in the streets.
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On Trump Supporters and Good Fruit
Trump was acknowledging that his followers have less of a commitment to basic morality and common decency than they have to him.
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Jesus Spoke Truth From the Dirt, Not a Stage
I was taught a lot about how Jesus’ death was about me and almost nothing about how his death was an act of suppression and hate by those in power
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On the Way Back Down: In Memory of the Charleston 9
By Paul Demer
Rev. Sharon Risher reminds me that there’s purpose on the way back down from pain and life on the other side of death.
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A Starting Place for Relationship and Sex Education
We are living, sentient beings, full of life and wonder, and the way we treat each other should go some way in to reflecting that wonder.
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We Have Refused to Listen: Repentance After George Floyd’s Murder
By Chris Hall
The Lord is calling us to sacrificial love, a love where the currency of our words is backed by the gold of our lives.
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There Is No ‘Other’
By Morf Morford
Our options in life were never equal, never fair, and never related to merit or work ethic.
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Two Years Later, Families Are Still Being Separated
By Gena Thomas
When I call you brother, I mean I will fight for your right to life as if you were my brother. When you call me sister, stand up for my…
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Dying to Whiteness, Becoming Anti-Racist
By Nathan Hunt
Whiteness is very real, and it cannot simply be exited by saying so.
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Why Have You Forsaken Us (by The Many)
By The Many
Lament is a form of protest and resistance to anything that destroys life.
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Dear Evangelical Church: A Goodbye
I felt that, short of Heaven, I had found home. Yesterday, I said goodbye.
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White Christians, It’s Time for Us to Repent
Church, White Christians, we are not Israel right now; we are Rome.
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Not Another Sunday: People of Faith Commit to Anti-Racism Work
By RLC Editor
Committing to not letting one more Sunday pass without addressing racism, white supremacy, and police brutality overtly from the pulpit.
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How Much Longer (by Common Hymnal)
Oh brother, lay your weapons down, where the river of justice rolls and all oppression drowns.
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Disembodiment, Embodiment, and Re-Embodiment
Our call as white Christians to love mercy, do justice, and walk humbly is seen in the practices of disembodiment, embodiment, and re-embodiment.
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Bless Me With Anger at White Supremacy
So that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.
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De-Creating Whiteness
By Nathan Hunt
If there is to ever be an end to all this pain, all this alienation and violence, it cannot come through the racial categories we have inherited.
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What Lament Has to Do with Justice
Without lament we don’t have a vehicle for repentance and we can’t move into shalom.
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Trusting Systems With the Irreversible Power of Death
One can only hope that executing people is one of the things we don’t want to return to.
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Clearing the Temple Courts: What Jesus Did About Systemic Injustice
By Corey Farr
Clearing the temple was disruptive and highly controversial.
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The Return of the One Percent
By Morf Morford
In 2020, a new one percent made its way into the public eye: the expendable.
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Racial Trauma, Resilience, and Poetry
This is a tribute to the enduring struggle of intergenerational racial trauma and the extraordinary resilience that has accompanied it.
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Beauty for Weary Souls
By Sue Fulmore
In ways which facts and arguments will never reach us, beauty has a way of bypassing our heads and going straight to our hearts.
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On Protesting: A Theological Reflection for the Privileged (like me)
By Jon Huckins
Jesus disrupted the pseudo-peace to expose it for what it was; a weapon of the state to maintain the status quo.
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#SundaySermon: This Is the Way the World Ends
Today, may our whimper give way to action and compassion, for a new world and a new America.
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Four Thoughts for White Christians
By Levi Yancy
God shows us that we have a responsibility to do right. Also, we have a responsibility to bring people with us on the journey.
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Genuine Freedom Is Love at Work
If freedom does not serve a purpose beyond itself then it is a self-centered trivial thing.
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Rediscipling the White Church
The problem of individualism is that many white people refuse to see ourselves as white.
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I’ve Had Enough of #Solidarity
Are we really in this together?
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Let’s Have Church! (By Loving Our Neighbors)
In seeking eternal life, are we not making choices about who we love as our neighbor?
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Hope Out of Breath: On the Lynching of George Floyd
With his face forcefully scraping the asphalt, George Floyd was also found guilty of impersonating a human being.
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When Killing Is the Priority
By Chris Brown
How does a state that is reportedly 77% Christian choose to carry out the ritualized killing of a likely innocent man in the middle of a pandemic crisis?
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Americans Demand Freedom, But for What?
By Rachel Jones
For the first time in generations, Americans are being asked to consider the collective.
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The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump
By Tony Campolo
The chapter writers—Republicans, Independents and Democrats—deal with hard questions: What does the Bible say about Donald Trump’s character?
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A Picture is Worth 1000 Words
By Alex Gee
If we don’t want two Americas, two societies, then we can’t continue to have two sets of rules.
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Voting for the Common Good
By Doug Pagitt
Encouraging people of faith to bring about a change on election day by making the common good their voting criteria.
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The End of Days? Beware of Becoming a False Prophet
Stop claiming this or that person is the antichrist or the savior of the world.
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Why Racial Reconciliation Isn’t The Answer to Racial Violence
It’s wrong to hold the abused partner equally responsible for reconciling with the abuser
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Bound Liberation: An Interview With ‘Stimulus for All’
By Ryan Kuja
Supporting those who have been barred from COVID-19 financial relief isn’t about charity. It’s about justice.
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The Cross and the Lynching Tree: A Requiem for Ahmaud Arbery
Another live taken. Another public lynching. Another news story. Another act of recorded black death.
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Faith Leaders Mobilize Around Gun Safety in 2020
By RLC Editor
A leading gun control advocacy group has enlisted more than a dozen religious leaders to boost voter turnout this fall.
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In the Era of Ahmaud, What Does Solidarity Have to Do With Jesus?
The reality is, centuries and generations of witnessing Black flesh disemboweled in our streets has socialized our conscience to accept it as normal.
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Stare Racism in the Face
We need to stare racism in the face and boldly change the future to ensure horrors like Arbery’s killing are less likely to happen again.
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Jobs and Judgment in a Time of Pandemic
Some workers are being pressured to return to their jobs. And when they are reluctant to do so their motives are being judged.
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Three Ways Your Church Can Combat the Incarnation of ‘Race’
By Ryan Kuja
Individual churches have a responsibility to become aware of our complicity in that which undermines abundant life for all.
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Statistics Are People Too
By Bill Cayley
But those who will be impacted adversely by a premature return to “normalcy” are not just numbers.
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Mother to Son: Letter to a Black Boy on Identity and Hope
It’s no accident that you are black. You were made black on purpose.
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It’s Complicated: A Different Liturgy for Mother’s Day
You don’t need me to tell you that Mother’s Day is complicated for many. A two-second pause to contemplate the people in your life for whom the holiday might be…
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Watch and Pray: A Message for the Symptomatic
You do not need to plead with God for your survival or submit to this disease, because it is not God’s will that you be sick.
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Fighting for Hope: Brooklyn Coffee Shop Turned Food Pantry
We decided to offer up what we had. Empty tables.
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Why I Am (Not) a Christian
By Corey Farr
I know I love Jesus, I know Jesus changed my life, I know I want to follow him, but I also know there are lots of things people consider “essential”…
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COVID-19, Racism, and the Church
By Tim Taylor
We must address racism in the church in the way our nation has addressed Covid-19: We must acknowledge it directly.
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Crying In the Crisis
That cry, that cry, it makes you dangerous to the forces of injustice.
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Stopping COVID-19’s Third Wave: Our Christian Duty
By Mark Viso
If there’s one thing coronavirus has shown us, it’s that we’re all equally human, equally vulnerable, and universally connected.
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Biblical Justice is the Gospel Manifested
The Bible is a book about justice. Kingdom justice. Biblical justice. And social justice.
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Dear Christians, It’s Time to Take Creation Care Seriously
By Sarah Styf
Respect for the earth isn’t worship; it’s a reflection of our worship of our Creator.
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Comfort in a Time of Communal Suffering
By Wendy Alsup
In its early history, the Church excelled in the very type of medical crisis that we are experiencing today.
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The Moral (and Legal) Case for Emptying NC Prisons.
Now the virus is holding up a mirror to our immorality.
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Together, Apart, Together: Living into Easter
An Imperial crucifixion and tomb could not hold Jesus, nor will a pandemic hold back our love for each other that gives us hope for a better future.
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Living Room Liturgy: A Prayer for Laughter
By Zen Hess
Is there a time for mourning and grief? Yes. But there must also be time for laughter, for dancing, for joy.
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Pandemic, Not Pomp and Circumstance
The class of 2020 was born into a country disfigured by terrorism, and now will be launched into the world during a global pandemic.
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Is This How It All Ends?: Challenging Our Shared Fatalism
By Morf Morford
It just might be how it all ends – or, after a thousand false starts, how it begins.
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The Resurrection will be Live-Streamed
By Eric Minton
I only buy it as actual religious practice if the sound machine of my existence is turned all the way up.
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Nothing Can Separate Us: The Cross and the Prison Cell
Our students are becoming everyday peacemakers because they have come to realize that God is not done with them.
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Amidst Pandemic, the Chance to Experience Easter as the Apostles Did
So let’s experience Easter as the Apostles did: in small groups at home, preparing to share God’s love with the poor and vulnerable.
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Abolish the Death Penalty
If anyone had just cause to kill in self-defense or execute someone for the sake of justice, it was Jesus. Yet . . .
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A Reflection on Maundy Thursday
By Chris Ebling
The story that begins on Maundy Thursday is one of betrayal, denial, pain, and sacrifice. Where were you?
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Maundy Thursday & Easter with Red Letter Christians
By RLC Editor
During this holiest of weeks, we invite you to draw closer to God by joining Red Letter Christians online.
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To the Isolated Addicts (And That Is, All of Us)
It is certain that these challenging times bring to focus and confront the addictions within our culture that we do not like living without.
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Could the Coronavirus be Good for the Church?
What could happen if more churches started experimenting and implementing new forms of ministry like their “life” depended on it?
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When Jesus Social Distanced Himself
When Jesus denied temptation in the wilderness, he showed us by example how to live.
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Todos Cuentan! Everyone Counts!
The 2020 Census gives us a means to help close the economic gaps that haunt so many poor people’s lives.
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Urging Followers of Christ Not to Call COVID-19 the Chinese (Or Wuhan) Virus
By Carl Ruby
Here are four reasons why I urge followers of Christ not to call COVID-19 the “Chinese” or “Wuhan” virus.”
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In the Company of Difference: An Excerpt from I Am Not Your Enemy
In fact, it’s in the presence of difference that hospitality is often most needed.
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How the War on Christmas Became the War on Easter
What I would say to the pastors going to jail right now for defying the quarantine is this: read Romans 13.